Paypal may eventually implement Bitcoins as a funding instrument

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Here’s a quote from a few months back by David Marcus, president of PayPal.
“I think here, for us at PayPal, it’s just a question of whether Bitcoin will make its way to PayPal’s funding instrument or not, and we’re kind of thinking about it right now.”

This would be very big news if and when it happens. If PayPal accepts Bitcoin as a funding instrument, it will open up the flood gates for spending Bitcoin and there will be quite a few other benefits as well. Here are a few:

- You will be able to spend your bitcoins on eBay
- People from all those countries currently not supported by PayPal can now fund their PayPal accounts with Bitcoin!
- PayPal provides consumer protection
- Merchants will get Bitcoin payment processing directly from PayPal!
- They may even be a sort of proxy exchange where the average Joe can buy Bitcoins with money from their credit card or bank account.

If Paypal does eventually allow Bitcoin transactions, it would mean a super easy way for almost everyone to move between their local currency and Bitcoins, on demand, as well as allowing Paypal to capitalize on Bitcoins via an exchange fee, rather than potentially succumbing to obsolescence if Bitcoin eventually gets too big and starts eating their lunch. The big questions here is whether PayPal would implement this as a one-way or a two-way mechanism. They can easily do either, but the most exciting prospect would be if they allowed you to withdraw funds to a bitcoin address. It’s entirely possible they won’t do this as they can’t then reverse the operation, but who’s to say? They have no qualms about putting your PayPal account into the negative if they have to.
Will you be able to get paid on Paypal to a bitcoin address anytime soon? We’ll all just have to wait and see.